As she lay and heard the great organ of the
heavens, its voice seemed to grow articulate; God was calling to
her, and saying, "Here I am, my child! be not afraid!"
Then she began to reason with herself that the worst that could
happen to her was to lie there till she died of hunger, and that
could not be so very bad! And therewith across the muttering thunder
came a wail of the ghost-music. She started: had she not heard it a
hundred times before, as she lay there in the dark alone? Was she
only now for the first time waking up to it--she, the lady they had
shut up there to die--where she had lain for ages, with every now
and then that sound of the angels singing, far above her in the blue
sky?
She was beginning to wander. She reasoned with herself, and
dismissed the fancy; but it came and came again, mingled with real
memories, mostly of the roof, and Donal.
By and by she fell asleep, and woke in a terror which seemed to have
been growing in her sleep. She sat up, and stared into the dark.
>From where stood the altar, seemed to rise and approach her a form
of deeper darkness. She heard nothing, saw nothing, but something
was there. It came nearer. It was but a fancy; she knew it; but the
fancy assumed to be: the moment she gave way, and acknowledged it,
that moment it would have the reality it had been waiting for, and
clasp her in its skeleton-arms! She cried aloud, but it only came
nearer; it was about to seize her!
A sudden, divine change!--her fear was gone, and in its place a
sense of absolute safety: there was nothing in all the universe to
be afraid of! It was a night of June, with roses, roses everywhere!
Glory be to the Father! But how was it? Had he sent her mother to
think her full of roses? Why her mother? God himself is the heart of
every rose that ever bloomed! She would have sung aloud for joy, but
no voice came; she could not utter a sound.
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